Whisky Christmas Read online

“Great. I’ll drop by the hospital this week with a label concept. One of the guys here does them for me, and he’s a genius with graphic shit.”

  I didn’t know Barrett all that well—Gage was closer with him than I was—but I liked him now more than ever.

  “And you’ll be there? At the party?”

  Barrett nodded. “Yeah, I could stop by for a few.”

  I beamed. “Gage’ll be happy to have you there… I mean, I will too.”

  Barrett laughed. “I knew what you meant.”

  I tipped the last of the beer down my throat and set the glass on the smooth wood of the bar. “Make sure you let the other guys know they’re invited as well. The more the merrier.”

  “Will do.”

  I thanked Barrett and Jane once before heading out to check the next thousand things off my to-do list, but as I did, I felt better about everything than I had the hour before. This whole thing might turn out after all. Armed with Frankie’s suggestions and the kindness of my friends, I was two steps closer to pulling it off.

  I paused just inside the door. “Neither of you happen to know a DJ, do you?”

  “Do you think he has any idea?”

  I leaned in closer to Logan until only a couple of inches separated us and lowered my voice to make sure we weren’t overheard. Gage was doing rounds on the second floor, but he’d almost busted me talking about his party more than once in the previous week. I couldn’t take any chances now.

  Logan tilted his head up.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Mistletoe. You’re so fucking close to me I thought you wanted to make out.”

  “Sorry.” I backed up a couple of inches, laughing. “So do you? Think he knows?”

  Logan looked at me like I’d asked him if I thought I could fit a cantaloupe up my ass. “You’ve met your fiancé, right? You’ve spent time with him that didn’t involve playing with your naughty bits?”

  “You don’t give him enough credit.”

  “I give him plenty of credit. Just not when it comes to shit like this. Excellent surgeon, check. Poster child for observationality, not a fucking chance.”

  “That’s not a word.”

  Logan rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

  “So you don’t think he suspects.”

  “Seriously?” He cocked his head to the side in an exasperated gesture, then straightened again. “I know you want to make this a birthday to remember for him, and it will be. Quit stressing about it because you’re starting to act like a crazy—scratch that—crazier person, and even the staff has noticed.”

  “The staff has noticed what?” Dawn asked, peeking her head through the door just far enough that I could see her hot pink scrubs.

  “How Holden has suddenly become even more batshit crazy than usual,” Logan said.

  She laughed. “Oh. Yeah. If it weren’t for the party, we’d think you’ve hit your midlife crisis a few years early and it’s just a matter of time before you’ll be driving a Porsche to work in the snow.”

  “Midlife crisis,” I grumbled. “You know, it wouldn’t be so hard to replace you…”

  She planted her hands on her hips and shot me a cocky smile. “You’d be completely lost without me, Dr. Prescott.”

  She’d come so far from the shy, wet-behind-the-ears nurse she’d been when I first showed up in town. “I probably would. And since you’re so good at running things, maybe you could help me with some stuff that’s less… hospital related.”

  “And maybe you could sound less like you want her to join your sex ring,” Logan added.

  Dawn’s gaze shifted between the two of us, and I realized how that had sounded.

  “What? No.” I shook my head. “I meant for the party.”

  She laughed. “Given how moony you two are around each other, I didn’t figure that’s what you meant.”

  “What?” I said again. “We’re not moony.”

  “The mooniest,” Logan said.

  “I just need a hand with prep,” I said, ignoring them both. “Gage has already been on my case about what I’ve been up to lately, and I don’t want him catching on.”

  “I really don’t think you need to worry about that,” Logan said.

  “I’ll help out in any way I can,” Dawn assured me. “It’s too bad we can’t shut down the hospital for the night. Everyone wants to go.”

  “They can stop by in shifts. As long as nothing major happens.”

  The ER in Sawyer’s Ferry tended to quiet down around the holidays. People held out for Christmas to pass before they sought medical attention unless absolutely necessary. It was a nice, momentary reprieve, but the post-holiday shitshow more than made up for the temporary quiet.

  “Well, you just fucking jinxed us all, so thanks for that. You’re lucky I’m the one covering that night,” Logan teased. “You and Loverboy are free to enjoy your party without worrying.”

  I laughed. “You’ll be fine. And if the world ends, we’re only a couple blocks away.”

  “Where the hell have you been the last two weeks?” Gage asked with that husky quality to his voice that never failed to get my blood pumping faster. There was an edge there too, like he was losing patience with attempting to get me alone. “I’ve been trying to pin you down for days.”

  I sauntered closer and slid my hands up underneath his shirt, splaying my fingers across his chest. Leaning in, I licked a stripe along the underside of his jaw as I flicked one thumb across his nipple. “You can pin me down anytime you’d like.”

  Things between us had been almost strained since I’d started the planning. I’d been so busy running around and trying to hide things from him that I’d barely seen him, but with the party only one day away, there was still so much to do.

  I allowed myself a few minutes to forget about everything but Gage. It felt good to touch him like this. It was so easy to be with him—the closeness fell so easily into place, and everything else faded away until it was just me and him.

  He backed me up against the table in the center of the room and hoisted me up, pulling my knees up and around his hips and leaning me backward to kiss me. No matter how many times Gage had kissed me, it never failed to make my heart race, sending my blood pressure skyrocketing.

  “You’re wearing too many clothes,” Gage growled against my neck as he kissed beneath my jaw. I let my head fall back, giving him better access as he made me shiver with the sensation of his beard brushing against my sensitive skin. “Why are you always wearing so many goddamn clothes?”

  “There’s a quick fix for that,” I said, already breathless.

  It wouldn’t be the first time we’d fucked in the hospital, though I preferred the on-call room for its privacy.

  “Maybe we should take this someplace a little less public,” I panted.

  “Don’t mind me.” Logan’s voice pierced through the haze of lust.

  He stepped around Gage to peer at me as I adjusted my scrub pants to hide the raging erection currently tenting them.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Gage growled, exasperation—or maybe it was desire—making his voice rougher than usual.

  “Didn’t mean to interrupt the prequel to the honeymoon you were having six inches away from Natasha’s snickerdoodles.”

  “No one’s getting a prequel to anything,” Gage mumbled under his breath, and I felt a little stab of guilt. Yeah, I’d been distant lately, but it was for a good cause, and we were almost there. Everything would be clear the following night, and I hoped to God he thought it was worth it.

  I turned to Logan. “Did you need something?”

  “Just my coat.”

  Gage laughed. “You’ve remembered your coat a total of six times in your whole life, and right this second was one of them. Of course it was.”

  “Jackson’s been on my case about it. I’ll be outta your hair in a minute and you can pick up where you left off, but I might suggest taking it to somewhere else? HR isn’t as understanding as
I am.”

  “Says the guy who got caught blowing his boyfriend in one of the patient rooms by not one, but two nurses.”

  “Not my fault the door doesn’t lock. Jackson needed his spirits lifted after almost most dying.”

  His words were serious, but his tone wasn’t. I knew how terrified he’d been that he’d lost Jackson, but since that night, things had turned around so quickly for them. Almost dying can do that to a guy—setting priorities straight in an instant. At least, that’s what seemed to have happened. They’d been holed up together pretty much every day since, and I’d hardly seen Logan except for when he was working.

  I understood. I’d wanted Gage all to myself. I still did, but it had been more difficult lately.

  The party was almost on us, and what should have been a simple get-together with friends from town had snowballed into the biggest celebration Sawyer’s Ferry had seen since the founding-day celebration. Between party planning, sneaking around to keep Gage from finding out, and keeping on top of patients and surgeries, there hadn’t been a lot of quality time happening with us.

  I’d been doing this all for him, but somewhere in the middle of the menu selection and the decoration construction, I’d missed out on spending time with him. The holidays were coming, his birthday was practically here, and I’d been avoiding him.

  That was all going to change now, though.

  While I was looking forward to his party, excited to see the look on his face when he walked into nearly the entire town, there to celebrate him, I was also looking forward to the days after—the Christmas Eve dinner at Logan’s, our quiet Christmas morning together. I liked the simple and mundane with Gage because it was anything but mundane.

  I took a moment to stare at him, remembering what it felt like to fall for him. I was still falling for him. How could I not?

  He’d been so fucking surly those first few days, the animosity flowing off him, and as fucked as it’d been, it had only made me want him more. Now, I knew that animosity had grown from the betrayal he’d experienced at the hands of my father. It had taken him a while to come around to the idea that I wasn’t anything like Philip Prescott, but once he did, I’d never experienced anything quite like being the center of Gage’s world.

  I loved him so fucking much that sometimes it was hard to breathe.

  The day of the party finally arrived. Barrett had texted earlier to let me know he’d dropped off the beer at J’s. I was looking forward to reaping the benefits of a drunk fiancé later on. Drunk Gage tended to walk on the kinkier side, and I fully planned to make this one birthday to remember.

  For now, I was more nervous than I’d been my first day as an intern. I needed this to go off without a hitch. Frankie had done his best to help organize things from New York, sending me checklists and menus. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I doubted quail eggs were readily available in Sawyer’s Ferry, but Jane had assured me that she and Oscar would be tag teaming the kitchen and that everything was taken care of.

  I ducked my head into the doctors’ lounge, where Gage was waiting for me. My last surgery had run half an hour longer than planned, but I’d given Jane a heads-up that we’d be rolling in a little late.

  “Ready to go?”

  He turned and smiled at me, his chest rising and falling behind the thick down with a heavy breath. “If you are.”

  “Yeah. You’re sure you don’t wanna just do this another night? You look kinda bagged.”

  I gave him a sideways look. “Thanks a lot.”

  “I just meant that I’d be just as happy to be at home with you. We don’t need to go out.”

  “We certainly do,” I said, panic beginning to set in. When I’d told Gage to meet me at SFRH after work, I’d tried my best to sound totally casual. We’d made it this far without him suspecting anything was up, and for all he knew, I’d forgotten his birthday. I wasn’t going to spill the beans ten minutes before showtime. “I’ve been looking forward to sitting at the bar and having a drink with you.”

  Gage grinned. “Yeah, okay. That does sound good.”

  He took my hand and we walked through the halls and out the sliding doors. It had started to snow sometime in the last few hours, coating everything in a fresh layer of white. The days were so short this time of year, but the darkness didn’t feel cold and uninviting, not when every streetlight in town had been decorated for the season.

  They each gave off their soft glowing light, illuminating the sparkling streets and festive ornaments that hung in almost every store window.

  The minute we walked up to the doors of J’s, Gage stopped in his tracks. “Did Jane close up for the night?”

  Normally, the sound from the inside of the bar could be heard down the block this time of night. But tonight, there was absolute silence from inside. The sound of the snow falling outside was louder than the noises coming from inside the building.

  “The sign says open,” I said, with maybe a little too much enthusiasm. Now that we were here, I couldn’t fucking wait to get inside. I knew that behind those doors, people were packed into every available space, ready to spend the night celebrating the man I loved. I’d spent all day pretending that it was any other day. As much as it kicked me right in the gut, I wanted him to think I’d forgotten.

  He was still frozen, his hand resting on the door handle and a suspicious look on his face. “What’s going on?”

  “Huh?” I asked, trying my best to sound oblivious.

  “Holden.”

  “Can’t a guy take his fiancé out for a beer without being interrogated for no reason?”

  “He could if it wasn’t a specific day of the year and he hadn’t been acting all fucking sketched out all week.”

  “Specific day?” I was the worst actor on the planet. He stared at me, the gaze that went right through me every fucking time, the one that pierced my soul and saw everything I’d ever tried to hide. This was child’s play compared to the things Gage had unearthed in the past.

  I knew the jig was up.

  I stepped forward and let the smile I’d been suppressing surface. “Almost every single resident of Sawyer’s Ferry is in there—well, maybe not every single one; that might be a fire code violation—but it’s your birthday and everyone who knows you wanted to celebrate with you. So I planned a party.”

  “Holden.” A whole novel could have been written in the way he said my name, and although we hadn’t even made it in the building yet, I felt like I was sitting at the top of the world.

  “I wanted to do something for you this year, to make sure your birthday didn’t get lost in the chaos of Christmas.”

  “I love Christmas,” he said, but his voice was just slightly quieter than it’d been a moment ago.

  “Me too, but I love you more.”

  He lifted his hands, sliding them along my jaw and pulling me in for a slow, sweet kiss. I knew everyone was waiting for us, but they could wait a minute longer. Until the day I died, I would never get tired of this. He kissed me until my teeth began to chatter through the kiss.

  “We should get inside,” he said, pulling back a little and wrapping his arm around my shoulders.

  “Yeah. Stop lurking in front of the door like a fucking weirdo. Get in there and enjoy your party.”

  He looked like he was going to say something else, but instead clamped his mouth shut and reached for the door handle.

  Before he could grab it, the door flew open and Shaun and Leslie came barreling out. They were in uniform, the radios on their shoulders emitting the crackling voice of their dispatcher, giving them the rundown. I could only hear snippets of the voice, but from the bits I caught, we were looking at something major.

  Gage looked at me, that glint in his eyes, and I already knew his adrenaline was pumping.

  “What happened?” he asked, rushing to keep up to the paramedic team.

  “Helicopter went down on the highway, collided with a car. Not a lot of information yet, but we got a total of five
patients, according to dispatch.”

  “Fucking hell.”

  We hadn’t had a mass-casualty incident like this since I’d first arrived in Sawyer’s Ferry. They didn’t happen often, and Logan was going to need all the help he could get.

  “We’ll meet you at the hospital.” Gage’s deep voice seemed to echo over the fresh-fallen snow, and within seconds, Shaun and Leslie were gone, the sound of their siren fading into the distance.

  By the time Shaun and Leslie came screaming up to the EHS bay in the ambulance, we were as ready as we could be. The trauma bay was cleared, imaging had been made available, the OR had been prepped, and extra staff had been called in to deal with the influx of patients needing immediate care.

  The second ambulance was right behind the first, and within a few minutes, two patients had been unloaded into the ER.

  “This is the pilot. He’s the worst of the group—Floyd and Perry have the driver of the car, and the other three patients were conscious and appeared to have sustained minor injuries,” Leslie explained.

  “Let’s get the first two unloaded so you can get going,” Logan said. “What have we got?”

  Shaun rambled off the vitals and a preliminary survey of injuries, and Gage had already launched into action. Blood pooled on the floor beneath the patient as he was wheeled toward the trauma bay. With the amount of blood lost already, there was no doubt we were dealing with hemorrhagic shock.

  “You got this?” I asked as Logan and Gage began their examination, searching for multiple sources of blood loss. This one patient was in rough enough shape that he’d keep them busy for hours.

  He didn’t have much of a chance of survival, with at least three long bone fractures that were immediately apparent, but activating the massive transfusion protocol would give him a better shot.

  The next patient was wheeled in half a second later. Collared and unconscious, she was almost as battered and broken as the man.

  I was having flashbacks to my first foray into this hospital, multiple victims and little time to get injuries under control before lives would be lost. Behind me, I heard the squeak of wheels on the floor as the first patient was wheeled into the OR.